Is Violent Sport Cathartic?

Many people believe that violent sport is cathartic. There is good evidence that they are wrong.

The commonsense view is that it is good, especially for boys and adolescent males, to participate in violent sports such as football, boxing, rugby, North American hockey, and mixed martial arts. The reason is that it gives them a way to release or vent their pent up aggression through acts of controlled violence in organized sport. The idea is that it is better that they do it in such relatively harmless ways.

But, in their new book, philosophers of sport Mark Holowchak and Heather Reid point out that while "the data are not unambiguous, current research indicates strongly that exposure to aggression leads not to catharsis, but rather to heightened aggression" (p. 87). According to the authors, this poses a major obstacle to reforming contemporary sports, which are largely driven by martial abilities and market forces. Rather than sublimating violent behavior, the evidence, when examined carefully, shows that exposure to aggressive behavior leads to heightened aggression or more frequent aggression. This means we should reconsider our devotion to the sports mentioned above, because by "...condoning aggression in sport, we contribute to aggression and violence in society" (p. 92).

As a fan of many of the aforementioned sports, I am reluctantly willing to reconsider my love for them. Many of them are inherently violent, but to a certain degree I don't think that is necessarily wrong. This is not an issue I've examined, so I don't have a settled view on the matter, but the evidence does at least at least give us reason to question the commonsense view that we can minimize violence by channelling it into sports.

My view is that the positive effects of football, for example, on young males is not the alleged catharsis, but rather the qualities that a good coach requires of his or her team: discipline, cooperation, perseverance, and courage. A sound approach to sports would emphasize these traits, rather than seeking to sensationalize and profit from sport by promoting and supporting violence.

As someone who has played lacrosse and football for several years, this topic is one that is close to my heart. It makes sense that contact sports aren't cathartic, but I do believe that they can act as an outlet for aggression. Because of one too many concussions, I am no longer allowed to play contact sports, and I have found that I am much more aggressive in day to day life. Perhaps contact sports made me more aggressive in the first place, but I have definitely seen a shift towards more aggressive tendencies in myself when I don't have those outlets for physical violence. I do like your point about the other positive effects of contact sports - one I would add would be physical severity. Being in a physically challenging situation that involves persevering through pain is certainly a beneficial experience for many. Great post!

As someone who has played lacrosse and football for several years, this topic is one that is close to my heart. It makes sense that contact sports aren't cathartic, but I do believe that they can act as an outlet for aggression. Because of one too many concussions, I am no longer allowed to play contact sports, and I have found that I am much more aggressive in day to day life. Perhaps contact sports made me more aggressive in the first place, but I have definitely seen a shift towards more aggressive tendencies in myself when I don't have those outlets for physical violence. I do like your point about the other positive effects of contact sports - one I would add would be physical severity. Being in a physically challenging situation that involves persevering through pain is certainly a beneficial experience for many. Great post!

It hardly seems like news to me that exposure to something violent makes one more violent - be the exposure doing of viewing. We have good studies that show that men's testosterone levels go up when "their team" winds, and down when that team looses. What we watch change us - no matter how much we would like to claim it does not.

Logic would suggest that porn is the same way, but I doubt we will see a book on that.

What this hideous, double-negative means is "the data is ambiguous" so why are we even discussing this?

A whole century of psychological research (and a lifetime of experience) has shown that people need to displace aggression. When our boss yells at us, we go home and yell at our spouses, or exhibit road rage. If we keep the emotion inside, we resort to comfort food, drugs, alcohol or risky sex to feel better. or we suffer insomnia or other psychological disorders.

Aggression is a form of displacement, and we will displace one way or another. If i can hit a punching bag instead of my wife, is that not better? if I can enter a boxing ring and punch a willing opponent instead of taking a gun to work and shooting my boss, surely that is a better outcome? If I can run around on a field and charge at other men with full force and fury, maybe I won't be that jerk blaring his horn in traffic because he's angry at the world.

And even if the research is correct and aggressive behavior leads to more aggressive behavior- so what? If kickboxing means I do more kickboxing, what's the harm, as long as I'm kickboxing other sportsmen, and not my neighbour?